wrote...

Like the 1 cent/day Mt. Best chest fridge conversion? :-)

Does the above REALLY work as well as they say?

I think so. This started when Dr. Chalko (whose day job seems to involve
helicopter aerodynamics) noticed that chest freezers used less electricity
than fridges, despite their larger inside-outside temperature differences.

Then again, it would be nice if his fridge were larger and upright (for
easier access and less floorspace) and had a freezer compartment for ice
and ice cream. With just a few door openings, an upright freezer might
work well as an ultra-low-power fridge.

USDOE tests freezers at 0 F in a 90 F room to make up for no door openings.
The Energy Guide label on Whirlpool's EH151 14.8 ft^3 $369 chest freezer
says it uses 354 kWh/year that way, so it might use 354(70-36)/(90-0)
= 134 at 36 F, ie 0.37 kWh per day, or an average of 15.3 watts.

The A419ABC-1C digital thermostat from Johnson Controls ($62 as part number
L38716 from Jonestone Supply, with a remote thermistor) uses 1.8 VA max.
It could run the freezer when the box temp rises to 36 F.

If this is like Frigidaire's FFC1524 48"x29.5"x35" high chest freezer, with
cold coils inside the left 29.5"x35" side and hot coils under the skin of
the 48"x35" back, we might add an internal foil-foamboard partition parallel
to the left side to make a freezer compartment and add more foamboard over
the top of the chest lid and around the 3 cold sides and let a new stat run
a small fan to circulate air between the freezer and fridge compartments
when the fridge temp rises to 36 F.

Nick